I realised quickly that Pauly would be a terrible love interest but a great friend. Like me he’ll happily eat a bowl of $4 hand-pulled noodles down an alley off Mott Street, then trek north twenty-five blocks to queue for an hour at the Gramercy Tavern for their $12 warm chocolate bread pudding with cocoa nib ice cream.
Pauly seems to have finally met his match in Giovanna who sounds like the perfect lunatic for him: she thinks George Bush engineered 9/11 and that there were no planes, only holograms. She designs erotic underwear, and is currently in Milan on a buying trip. Even though she’s only been dating Pauly a month, she’s currently got him living in her Nolita apartment over on Elizabeth Street, babysitting her Schnoodles, Basquiat and Warhol. This is a total result – not only do I not have to hang around with an insane woman who owns a pair of Schnoodles, but it means I have Pauly’s place all to myself.
Pauly works in the music business and his place is small but supremely cool, with a giant projector screen instead of a TV, and one sleek silver remote control that seems to govern everything from his state of the art espresso machine to the bathtub. Best of all, the apartment has one wall made entirely of glass with the most amazing views of Brooklyn Bridge.
I wish James was here with me, he’d love it, I think, as I hurriedly unpack the handful of clothes I’ve brought. Still, if there’s one city I know how to have fun in regardless, it’s this one. I head out the door and walk north on Broadway towards Soho.
It’s the first week of May, and the weather’s a perfect 75 degrees with cloudless blue skies. I’m so unbelievably lucky that this is my day job, I think, as I pull open the door of Dean and Deluca and feel the air-con start to cool me down. I’m meeting Pauly in a few hours up by the Lincoln Centre, so I grab a tuna sandwich for now. I dream about these sandwiches: the perfect softness of the white bread, the fineness of the red onions, the saltiness of the capers, the ratio of mayo to tuna, the little fronds of almost sweet fresh dill – I’ve tried to recreate these at home but they’re never quite the same.
I spend the next twenty minutes in the store admiring the packaging of the spices, another twenty in the fruit and veg section marvelling at the price tags. I then head west along Bleeker Street to Rocco’s for a chocolate chip cannoli, up to Chelsea Farmer’s Market to pick up some Fat Witch caramel brownies for Maggie, then hop on the subway uptown for a night out, Pauly-style.
We go to three tequila-soaked Cinco de Mayo parties, and end up wearing purple sombreros, eating guacamole and drinking pomegranate margaritas at Rosa Mexicana, where they make the best guacamole north of Mexico. I think I could live solely on Mexican food for the rest of my life: they put chocolate in their chicken casseroles, they eat avocados every day, and limes, chillies and burritos (my three favourite food groups) are the founding pillars of their national cuisine. Around midnight, we swing by the roof party of a rapper with diamond teeth – James will never, ever believe me – and after a final Old Fashioned at a Lower East Side dive bar, I call it a night.
I spend the following days mostly hung-over, visiting farmers’ markets and bakeries, restaurants dedicated just to puddings, and mobile Bolivian food-carts in Queens. I eat desserts from 3 boroughs, 4 continents, 26 countries, without ever leaving the city. In the evenings, Pauly and I go to gallery openings in Chelsea, secret late-night speakeasies in the East Village and one cocktail bar staffed entirely by Stevie Nicks lookalikes.
I am having an exhausting but amazing time, and yet I can’t wait to fly back and see James. I text him to tell him I’ve just seen a man feeding a giant Hyacinth Macaw an Arnold Palmer in Madison Square Gardens. He texts me back saying, ‘I’ll feed you my Arnold Palmer when you get home,’ and I snigger like Sid James. When I roll in drunk at 2am I send him a photo of the Brooklyn Bridge at night, its strings of light reflected in the East River. He sends me back a photo of his feet resting on the coffee table in his living room – Sainsbury’s ready meal in the foreground, Spurs on the telly in the background.
On my final night I take Pauly back to Corner Bistro for dinner to thank him for letting me stay. I want to take him somewhere fancier but he’s adamant he wants a burger. I don’t push it – I know there isn’t a burger in London that comes close.
I tell Pauly briefly about how things are going with James, how he’s so vague and non-committal with arrangements.
‘How old did you say this guy was? He’s older, right?’
‘Oh, old, forty-five,’ I say. ‘So what, you think it’s just a generation thing?’ I say, hopefully.
Pauly looks at me with pity. ‘No, sweetheart, I don’t think that’s it.’
‘Well what?’ I say, putting down my burger, feeling suddenly nervous.
‘He’s late forties, attractive and rich?’
‘Yeah, so?’
‘And you haven’t met his friends?’
‘He’s met a couple of mine.’
‘Not the same thing. You say he travels a lot?’
‘He does business all over the place, the Far East, Europe. All over. Factories, investors … what?’
‘But he’s away regularly?’
I count the number of times James has gone away for business since I met him. Maybe six.
‘What, Pauly? Just say it, you’re worrying me.’
‘I hate to break it to you, but I think your dude’s married.’
I laugh, relieved. ‘He’s not married. Definitely not. He stayed over last Saturday and Sunday. And Monday. There’s no way his wife wouldn’t twig.’
‘Maybe he tells her he’s away on business.’
‘His phone’s always on, she’d call.’ Now I think about it, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it ring. Maybe it’s on silent …
‘He has two cell phones, cheaters always do,’ says Pauly, grabbing some fries from my plate. ‘There’s a wife.’
‘No, definitely not. I’ve been to his house, no trace of one.’
‘Okay, maybe not a wife but it sounds like there’s another woman, maybe several.’
You know what? I have a lot of time for Pauly but I’m not going to take advice from a guy whose longest relationship was three and a half months, and who expresses doubts that man ever landed on the moon.
‘Look, he’s just a commitment-phobe, plain and simple.’
‘No. Something’s up. If you’re okay to keep going, just taking these crumbs he’s giving you, that’s cool – but that doesn’t sound like your style.’
‘Let’s change the subject. Where are we going for pudding?’
On my way to the airport the following evening, I replay what Pauly was saying about James offering me ‘crumbs’, and how little I’m demanding from him. Maybe I should say something the next time I see him …
Then, as I board my flight, I get a text from James saying, ‘I’ll pick you up tomorrow at 7pm, you choose the restaurant.’ Now that’s more like it.
I open my front door to him and his eyes widen and he breaks into a grin.
‘Nice top,’ he says, kissing me.
‘You like? $20 from Loehmanns.’
‘I like. Where are we eating? Claridges? The Ivy?’
‘God, no,’ I say. ‘Head west, my treat.’
We are halfway through dinner at my favourite, favourite restaurant, Number One Thai, off Ladbroke Grove. Under the table our legs are touching and when I tell him about all the places I went to in New York, he says, ‘Next time I’m coming with you.’ (He doesn’t believe me about the diamond teeth.)
I